NW Iowa Women's Conf.

Here in NW Iowa, we're so very lucky to have an event like the NW Iowa Women's Conference to go to every year - right at Faith Lutheran Church, the church I go to. It was on Sat., Nov. 9th this year and was a nice day for women as usual - about 375 women, the most we've ever had attend.  

Carol Kent was the speaker. She speaks on how to live a new kind of normal when something bad happens to you.  Her story is that her son who went to the Naval Academy met and married a woman who had two small children.  He ended up murdering her ex husband.  Now Carol and her husband visit their only son in jail in Florida every weekend and that's where they spend their holidays. He is there for life with no chance of parole.

The women in charge of this conference do a great job from promoting it to the decorations to the lunch, the schedule, the music and even lots of door prizes.  My friend, Terri, and I helped Carol's husband sell her books during breaks.

Lunch was chicken salad with lots in it like grapes, apple and nuts, a pineapple cranberry salad, choice of potato or vegetable beef soup, roll and pumpkin pie - all made in our church kitchen.  We sat with some ladies that came by bus from Spencer and they were quite impressed that the food was not catered.

a table decoration

  

this was our lunch minus the soup

goodies to have when arriving

Insulation

This past week, the project around here was blowing insulation above the attic in the shed.  Bill bought the insulation from Community Lumber in West Bend.  They let you use the machines to do it with.  We used two of them.  Bill went up above with the two hoses and sprayed it all around while Tim and I fed the machines down below.

Bill said the bags of compacted insulation were 30 lbs.  You had to cut them in half with a knife and break the two chunks apart.  Half a bag is what fit in the machine at a time.  It wasn't hard and went fairly fast.  It only took about a day total to do.  I think the attic now has a R49 rating if that tells you anything.  The shed is now pretty well insulated. 

only 1 of the piles of empty bags

it looked like pink cotton candy once it was broken up

not fun wearing masks but very necessary

Eeeek!!!

Anybody that knows me knows that the one bug I'm scared of is a spider!!! I hate flies in the house but that's nothing compared to spiders!  Grandma R. used to kill them with her fingers - ewwwww!!!  No Way!  It's one of those things though that you can't wait for somebody else to kill them.  By the time they get home, who knows where it would be so I get a kleenex and wad it up and get 'em before they can get away and hide - or get me! 

So it's a little surprising that I thought it would be fun to make the following with Diane's little girls at Halloween time!  In a way, even if they're not real, it's kind of creepy to have spiders sitting on top of deviled eggs!  But the girls love olives and they were easy so we did it.  I made a big deal out of making them to surprise Uncle Bill. It was fun.  They really should probably have more legs but they were already big enough!  Lacey was impressed with the Pampered Chef tool we used to pipe in the egg filling.  She loves doing holiday food or crafts.

(The funny thing is that Bill won't eat olives, and I don't really care for them.  Look at all those olives in the middle!  The girls ate all of them by the end of the day!)

Bird Problems

Well, I've heard of three people that are wondering why I haven't posted for a while so today is the day to try to get some posts ready to go! We have been busy but mainly I'm STILL having problems with technology! I'm finally using only my new laptop and have gotten the things I use all the time where I want them and more importantly, know how to use them. Except for pictures. Still struggling with how to get them off my phone and organized so that finding them for blog posts is quick and easy. Not something I enjoy messing with. 

Today I've downloaded the ones I want from my phone and thought I had them deleted off of my phone but - they're still there. Ugh. So now I need to read my phone's instructions.

The latest project around here is insulating above the ceiling in the new shed. That job is done as of this morning and Bill is very happy. I "think" I have pictures of that to post if they didn't get deleted by mistake! 

Here are two I know I have. Last Christmas, thanks to my brother's idea, I gave Bill a weather station. It's a unit that he mounted on part of an old telephone pole. We LOVE being able to see how much rain we're getting as it comes down - from in the house! And lots of other weather info. too like wind speed & direction, humidity in and out. When it's raining hard it even says "it's raining cats and dogs!" But the problem with the rain has been that sometimes it gets clogged up since birds sit on top of it! We Googled "problems with Davis weather stations and birds" and found lots of ideas from people on things they've tried. Bill glued in a sink screen upside down and wired together a bunch of wire spikes! This should do the trick!

We Are Done

As of today, we are officially done with harvest.  Bill & Tim got done with anhydrous today, and I ripped the last field.  We got done combining Thurs. evening just before the elevator closed.  I was right behind the combine ripping that field when Bill's brother Jim got here so he took over.  Then he ripped the bean field end rows over the weekend.  Now all of the equipment has to be power washed and put away before the snow starts although we did have an inch one day last week.

We had a fairly warm but windy day yesterday so I got busy and took out window screens and scrubbed them and our outdoor chairs and things to get them put away clean.  Also cut off iris leaves and some other perennials.  I'd like to get a few windows washed but supposedly rain is coming in the next couple of days so maybe it's a good thing I haven't gotten to them yet. 

the anhydrous rig - long!

corn peeking above the top of the combine

our last harvest meal made for us by Aunt Bette Jo

the snow we had already last week

Harvest News

With snow in the forecast for Tues., all the farmers around here quickly switched from combining corn back to beans.  The corn can hold up better than the beans if snowed on so trying to get the beans done.

I got caught up with the ripping today.  My goal was to be done by 6:00 so I could get home to watch Sunday Night Football tonight.  It's the Colts vs. the Broncos.  In case you don't know, the long time Colts quarterback, Peyton Manning, now plays for the Broncos.  Should be an exciting game!!  Mom tells me that all the Indy area hotels are booked and fountains were being dyed blue downtown.  One of my friends said "everyone" had on their blue Colts shirts today.  I did too here in Iowa but I was the only one here! 

Today I finished Tim's field and then moved to a 40 acre field.  I got both done right at 6:00!  Then had to drive the tractor to Tim's house, grab our pickup and go to another field where Bill had started combining beans to wait for Tim to get there with the tractor and grain cart.  Then I dropped him off at our bin site where a semi was that he needed to take to Bill's mom's bean field where Bill will go after he finishes the other field.  Farming involves lots of moving!  I got home about 6:45.  Bill plans to combine as long as he can depending on the moisture tonight or until trucks are full.

It got very windy this evening which made 50 degrees feel cold.  

Yesterday I had my great niece riding with me all day.  She loved it and learned a lot!